


A Love that Crushed Me

by KinkyKoala, Smile_More, Zigglez



Series: Love is Crushing [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, Tolkien (2019)
Genre: Anal Sex, Drunken Flirting, Drunken Kissing, Gay Sex, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Poetry, Sad and Happy, Sad with a Happy Ending, Semi-Public Sex, Unrequited, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:00:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24439321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KinkyKoala/pseuds/KinkyKoala, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smile_More/pseuds/Smile_More, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zigglez/pseuds/Zigglez
Summary: Tolkien may have gotten his happy ending but not without breaking a few hearts along the way. Unfortunately for Geoffrey his is one of those hearts.
Relationships: Geoffrey Bache Smith/Christopher Wiseman, Geoffrey Bache Smith/J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Q. Gilson/J. R. R "John" Tolkien
Series: Love is Crushing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764991
Kudos: 1





	1. This Love, It Burns

**Author's Note:**

> Look we did it! We wrote it and now you have it and you can read it! We hope you enjoy and that you agree that we've come a long way since those first few chapters of A Crushing Sense of Love.

Chapter 1 - This Love, It Burns

"His eyes meet mine.

The Sun does shine.

He looks away.

The Sun does not stay.

I love him, yet him not me.

It is simply not to be.

Maybe in another life.

One where there was not, within my heart a knife and I did not live with this great strife.

We could find.

A love, visible to even the blind."

I overhear Geoffrey reading poetry to Tolkien from the Gym and make a mental note to ask him what that was about later. I often get concerned for him, for his mental state. Especially when he thinks of poetry like that.

I often try to convince him to write me lyrics. At least then he wouldn’t be writing it alone in the middle of the night like I suspect that poem was. It’d be great to do a project with him, his poetry’s sad, yeah. But it is good, better than the random shit about boobs that I manage to get into my songs.

Nothing screams come get at me ladies more than a couple of lines about those bouncing beauties.

I look around to find Teddy so I can stab someone rather than contemplating just how little action I'm getting. There he is, walking out of the changing room.

“Oi!” I call to him, throwing him a saber.

“Careful.” He warns, while still smiling and taking the first stance.

I start hitting at him but he pulls back, “Hey! Do it properly.” He demands and I roll my eyes.

“Allez.” I say, in a phony grand voice, mocking him.

The battle commences and the back and forth begins, hitting, then dodging, then hitting again. Me and Teddy are pretty evenly matched when it comes to fencing, rugby he’d win by a long shot but fencing is one of the few sports I can do. Pity I couldn’t be good at something a little less renowned for being for posh gay boys.

“Time!” The teacher announces before a true winner is determined.

“Until next time?” Teddy suggests. I nod and see Geoffrey going into the changing rooms.

That reminds me.

“Hold up!” I hollar to Geoffrey, who continues to leave despite my efforts. I jog up to him, still sweaty from the posh gay boy galavanting.

“If you don’t stop I’ll be forced to call a TCB... “ I stop, realising I really didn’t want Teddy and Tolkien there too, especially as I can hear the way Geoffrey’s breath is scarily uneven. “I call a Choffrey meeting.”

“A what?” The confusion seems to snap him out of his mopey state.

“A Choffrey meeting, you know, Chris and Geoffrey.” I say, barely explaining before walking away, knowing he’d follow.

“What was with the poem?” I ask, genuinely intrigued.

“What poem?” He asks, eyes darting about.

“You know exactly,  _ what poem _ . The one you were reading to Tolkien”.

“Oh.” He stops, still not making eye-contact. “ _ That _ poem.”

“So? Spill. What’s the deal with that mopey shit?” I walk around him and force him to look me in the eye as he speaks. He deliberately looks away but I can see the shimmer of tears.

“I was just inspired. There’s a kind of beauty to that love.” He swallows, almost wincing.

“What love?” I ask equal parts curious and concerned.

“The unrequited kind. It burns. It burns fierce and bright and stays that intense from the very first day it lights, until the day it is eventually extinguished. I’ve always wondered if it is ever really put out. Because it seems that however much reality stomps on the sticks it feeds on, it never really suffocates.” He answers, looking up at me so I can finally see his wet eyes. “It always finds another way to breathe.”

As he leans into the wall crying even harder: I wonder if I pushed him too hard.

  
  



	2. It Burns Bright

Chapter 2 - It Burns Bright

Something about wandering around at night really helps me think and write my poems. I haven’t written much recently, well not anything I could show any one. I thought I could, I thought if I could just get Tolkien to understand how I felt maybe, just maybe, I could work up the courage to show him my poems.

So I wrote one to tell him how I felt. A confession poem. One that would finally show him how I truly felt and that dumb arse didn’t even realise. There was a point where I thought he did, a flash of something in his eyes that looked like recognition. I had this wave of relief, the type that comes with being unburdened from a secret so deep and dark that you can barely put a name to it.

I needed confirmation though I pushed him to say those words, those words of recognition. I wish I hadn’t, I wish that wave of relief wasn’t followed by a cold rush of dread. I could have floated around on the euphoria for weeks but instead it felt like he’d weighed me down with lead.

It felt like a metaphor for what our relation was and would always be. One minute I would be floating and then Tolkien would say or do something without knowing and it would weigh me down until the cycle repeats.

There’s another poem in there somewhere. One that is forming in my mind and demanding to be written down so with a huff I plop myself down on a patch of grass. It’s cool and ever so slight wet underneath me but it’s calming in a way that has hints of childhood nostalgia.

I’m not sure how long I sit in the school’s green square before I hear it. Someone stumbling while shouting drunkenly about something or other. There’s some crude words being thrown around like ‘fag” so I decide that this is not really the best place to write the poem that’s buzzing in my head.

I get up to make a brisk exit but I’m stopped when I get a glance at the oaf that’s been smashing his way through the square.

God dammit Tolkien.

One night I asked for. One singular night to process the fact that he’s so thick that even my attempted love confession didn’t make my feelings clear.

But no, now I’ve got to look after his drunk ass. I try to be mad, I really do. I try to be angry that he’s ruined my alone time but who am I kidding. He could have ripped all my notebooks to shreds and then burnt them and as long as he smiled at me after I’d forgive him. Because he makes me insane like that. This stupid boy almost makes me want him to ruin me, just for a chance that he would kiss me.

So instead of shouting at him I just slowly make my way over to where he’s conveniently collapsed nearby.

It’s not until I’m about a metre away that he notices me and it’s not until he says my name in that broken tone that I realise he’s sobbing, full on wracked sobs. The type that cracks my heart when I look at how red and swollen his eyes are.

I try to wipe them but he moves his head into my chest instead, seemingly settling for my sweater rather than my handkerchief. I hope he can’t hear the way my heartbeat picks up everytime he cuddles closer or hopefully he’s drunk enough not to care.

We sit like this for a while, him sobbing somewhat more quietly into me while I try desperately not to imagine what it would be like to hold him this close and dearly everyday.

He mutters something that’s too muffled to hear and then sobs harder. I let him continue to tire himself out as my few attempts to talk have been drowned out by his cries. As he settles into less of a distraught, world-ending cry into sadly weeping, I find myself wondering why it hadn’t occurred to me he was homophobic.

Perhaps it was worse than just unrequited love, perhaps I’m doomed to not only a blissfully oblivious doof as my true love but a bigoted homophobe.

It would be just my luck.

Just as I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m much more of a fuck up than I thought I was he says the first intelligible words.

“Do you ever...” There’s a hiccupy breath in and out. “Do you ever, love someone so much-” Then there's a series of sobs. “-that it hurts. And it hurts so fucking much.”

My blood runs cold and it occurs to me that I might not come out of this night unscathed. That is not the sentence you say lightly, not the sort of sentence you say just because you’re drunk. That’s a sentence formed with pain and love.

He’s ever so drunk though and he doesn’t even process the pain that flashes across my face. Nor does he understand that he is no longer the only one crying. Silent tears make their way down my face and I let out a slow sigh. 

Because he will never know how much I know that pain.

Because he will never know the way just seeing his face makes my heart leap.

Because he will never know the love I hold for him.

I whisper softly to him. “I know that pain more than you will ever know.”

“How could you know?”

It doesn’t even scare me that he’s heard because we both know he’s too drunk and too tired to remember any of this. Maybe that’s why it hurts ever so much more to say.

“Because I love you”’

Then he says two little words that send a bullet through my chest.

“I know.”

I think about those words as he collapses into me sleepily for the last time that night and when I walk him to his room and as I fall asleep but I chose not to dwell on them because let's face it.

Even if he knows now, he won’t tomorrow because realisations and clarity for him are only ever drunken occurrences. Which is why the last few moments of consciousness I have are spent letting tears leak into my pillow.


End file.
